There is a new overall commander for forces in the Eastern theater on the day of the news of Gen. Banks' smashing victory over Gen. Jackson's forces at Winchester, President Lincoln has appointed Gen. Lee Sphar to overall command of the entirety of the Eastern theater of the war. Information from army sources is scarce as of yet, but it appears that Sphar will leave McClellan in charge of the Army of the Potomac. Early reports are that he will serve primarily as a conduit between the President and his generals, in addition to planning and directing the somewhat lackluster war effort up to this point. Officers and staff with McClellan were too busy to find time to give any further information to the public.[/font][/size]

[font="Times New Roman"]Here we see a photo of Gen. McClellan meeting with President Lincoln. Many have attributed this move to their somewhat rocky relationship.[/font]

[addendum] - Actual New York Times banner from March 26th 1862, thanks to the Historic New York Times project for that, they've got the Civil War years up and viewable, very cool site, check it out. And yes, at the time, the papers were predicting that Banks would soon cut off and capture Jackson's entire force in the valley after causing, "The most dreadful rout of the war" http://www.nyt.ulib.org/index.cgi

And thanks to the Civil War Net for the Little Mac and Lincoln photo. That site has a ton of great pics. http://www.civil-war.net/

And it begins. As stated in the Union War room the first turn in my areas consisted mainly in the reorganization of my forces.

I just decreased the AoP to the HQ unit and four corps instead of the rather unwieldy six they start with. That also frees up some division HQ units and leaders. The division sitting in the snow on the B&O railroad will move west into West Virginia and be joined by Ben Butler from Annapolis, got some plans for these guys later.

I decide to move one corps of the Army of the Potomac forward to Manassas, since it's unguarded. If he comes in to attempt to hold the city, then hopefully the rest of my army will reinforce and be able to put a hurting on them, and if not, then I can pull off a quick move to prepare for the summer.

In the South, the only active force is Burnside in South Carolina. He will take his two divisions and advance on Hardeeville. Burnside should be getting reinforced in the next couple of turns. If I can reinforce him, I should be able to cause considerable problems for the South with this force since there's only so much they can pull off the front lines to deal with him. He should be too powerful to stop with militia alone.

Not much going on in the east this turn. My advance corps had no problems moving into Manassas Junction, and that should help in the Valley. McClellan is active due to the presidential order event, so I advance one corps and the HQ unit on Manassas to ensure it is held, and send two other corps south in the direction of Fredricksburg. I'm not eager to bring on a large battle yet, but if it comes I should be ready.

Banks is inactive this turn naturally. I had hoped to be able to advance on Winchester and take the initiative from Jackson, but I'm not daring an offensive with him inactive, he's bad enough when he's active. I formed Fremont's army, but as there is still snow on the ground in the mountains, he'll remain in place for now.

My units being locked outside of Fort Monroe hurts as Magruder moves in and cuts them off from the fort. As you can see, they can't move further West into an open city, so I tell them to evade and send them into the fort, hopefully they will make it, otherwise, the fort will probably fall to a concerted effort.

In the South, Burnside invests Hardeeville, which apparently contains 11 units. The fleet is there, so I'll probably let them give it a go for a few turns and see if he can take it. If not, the boats are there, and I can pull out if things get too hot. I've also got Rufus King's Division ready to ship down if they're needed. Hopefully not, but they're available if necessary.

Nothing much to report this turn. A small Cavalry force has appeared west of Harper's Ferry under Stuart. Probably an attempt to cut the rail lines. I've dispatched a cavalry force under Kearney to chase him off and repair the damage.

Forces made it back into Fort Monroe, which should be able to hold out for a while now.

In the South, a small confederate force came out and chased off the small rearguard force behind Burnside, despite losing the battle. I'm not too worried about them, what does concern me is that my good chance to capture Hardeeville may have been blown this turn. We created a breach in the defenses, and did quite a bit of damage, but of course, Burnside failed his activation roll, so I can't attempt to capture the city this turn. I hope they can't repair the breach before he's able to activate again. I did send a couple of brigades to cross the river to try and cut the rail lines into Savannah to try and keep them from reinforcing too much.

That's about it. Don't even need any screenshots. Next turn should be quite a bit more active, as at least one major move (Hopefully 2 or 3) will be taking place.

Well, I had hoped to be on the offensive a bit more so far, but with Little Mac in command, you might as well wish for a goose to lay you some golden eggs. One advantage of this general lack of action is that your opponents can get overanxious. Hopefully this turn, that exact thing has happened.

Jackson is moving on Harper's Ferry this turn. Once I realized that I wasn't going to be able to clear the valley by any offensive on my part, this was the second best option in my opinion. Jackson moves north, which leaves Winchester lightly defended. I am moving Sumner west to assault Winchester, along with Kearney who is chasing Stuart that way too. I'll be downright shocked if he's left enough of a force in Winchester to hold off an assault by an entire corps of the AoP. Once I grab that, I'll be sitting on Jackson's path of retreat. Banks is currently roughly the same strength as Jackson, which would normally be a horrible, horrible thing. But Banks is entrenched, and I've sent another corps (Franklin's) to Harper's Ferry to support him. That will give me a 2-1 advantage over Jackson, with another force larger than him sitting behind him.

You know, I've been sitting here thinking about how incredibly wonderful this plan is, then I thought about Second Bull Run...similar situation. "Now I've got Jackson right where I want him. Attack!" I just hope it turns out better for me than it did for Pope. If all goes well, I'm going to eliminate a large part of the ANV, and I should have a strong enough force to advance further south soon. If it goes badly, who knows. Hopefully Lee invades, loses some orders, and I can fight him in Maryland.

General Burnside continues to delay activating and eliminating that pesky garrison in Hardeeville. Lord knows, he'll probably finally be active and I'll send him in and he'll pull a mini-Fredricksburg on me and get trounced.

Yay, troops in Florida activated. Nearly useless, but I go ahead and send forces to capture the small towns east and south of me. Later I'll see about marching on Jacksonville if I can reinforce Parke just a bit.

New Orleans fell without a fight to good old "Spoons" Butler. Now he can issue his little orders in New Orleans and get everyone to hate him. Hopefully somewhere in there, we'll manage to take a few other things down there too. I've got a division of troops headed down there to give him an assist in expanding his area a bit further than just New Orleans.

Hey hey everyone, I'm back. Okay, despite the delay, I still had high hopes for this turn, only to have them cruelly shattered by the incompetence of my generals (I'm playing the Union, so what else is new?).

Here we see how my thrust into Winchester was about as far from a thrust as is possible, my good ole boy Sumner decided to retreat from a reinforced Longstreet without even giving it much of a shot. So, I've had to divert Franklin to try to help him. I left Sumner in a defensive posture, hoping that will delay action long enough for Franklin to arrive since he'll be a few days later arriving. The real problem is that with Longstreet and Jackson being corps, Jackson will most likely march over and help out, which will most likely mean another defeat for my army. Who knows, maybe I'll get lucky, but I'm not expecting it. To help out, I'm also shifting a slightly reduced corps under McDowell up, but as I'm marching them, it will take about two full turns, so he'll arrive probably just in time to witness the other two corps destruction.

I'm assembling another division with newly raised troops, and once they arrive in position, I'm going to go ahead and advance out of the Manassas area to try to put a little more pressure on him so he isn't free to divert troops to the two good corps commanders, getting my corps out of Little Macs' horrible influence won't hurt either, since he absolutely kills their initiative.

In West Virginia, Fremont has nearly arrived at his destination. Naturally, he's inactive though, so I'm going to have to sit around and twiddle my thumbs while I wait for the chance to crush the militia I'll be facing.

Praise be and hallelujah! Burnside finally decided to activate. I've been pounding the forces here for a while, and have created two breaches, so I put him on assault, and fully expect him (and all his forces) to die horrible deaths as they're slowly destroyed by a single Confederate running around poking people with his bayonet. His side force also crossed the river finally, and have begun the destruction of the rail line.

No screenshot, as there's nothing much to show, but both of the Florida towns I went after last turn were captured, and there's not really anything going on there now.

I sent a small group from Butler's force to capture the forts below New Orleans. It's going to take a while, so I won't update this too much for a bit, until I can reinforce him and actually begin to move offensively.

God what i wouldn't give for a real general in the East, if my generals were even average, and active more than one turn in five, I could put enough pressure on to achieve something, as it is, I'll be happy if I can even stabilize the line at the moment.

Okay, things are going from bad to worse in the main campaign, but improving elsewhere, so I have no clue whether I should be happy or upset. Oh well, life in Washington.

Once I stop shuffling little units around out here, I'm going to start diagramming what I'm trying to do. If I tried it now, it would come out looking like some kind of psychedelic spaghetti. Basically, Sumner is being transferred from the AoP to Banks Valley army. I should have done this a turn or two ago, but then I didn't expect to be in the position I'm in now. Banks has been doing well enough to continue to hold out at Harper's Ferry. He's losing the battles, but not badly, and he's still got possession of the city. With another large corps to support him, he should be able to put up a pretty good fight. Sumner is circling around to get into position North of Banks to keep his line of retreat open, if that becomes necessary. He will also build another depot up there so if I am pushed back, I'll have a base of supply in the area still.

Kearney is going to take his cavalry units and once again try to meet up with the remainder of the cavalry division as they all converge on Stuart who got caught trying to circle behind my lines. He didn't expect King and his whole division to be in Annapolis, and had a skirmish there. Speaking of King, I'm going to keep him in the East for now as a fire brigade so to speak, that I can send where he's most needed. Right now, he's done well just by showing the rebels that my back areas aren't exactly denuded of troops. Hopefully that will discourage a lot of raids.

Like I said, I've got lots of small units moving back and forth. Most of the units destined for my cavalry division are headed to deal with Stuart, while I'm also sending more units forward to build another division for McClellan. The Rebs have so much force in the Valley that the approaches to Richmond can't be too heavily guarded. I'd like to build up a large enough force to at least threaten a move south, and hopefully force him to lessen the pressure in the Valley.

What I really need is better leadership. McClellan is killing me with his -2 to all his corps commander's strat rating. They're slow and bad enough as it is, but add that in, and my army is damn near useless, which is as it should be I suppose, but man does it suck. I know the western areas have a lot more ground to cover, but I know for a fact that the Rebs can't afford to have reinforced this theater and still built a massive army out west. He could find somewhere to use a bad general that won't hurt the war effort as much as having him here defending Washington against the best generals the Confederates have. I've got plenty of bad generals shuffled off to side efforts as it is, I don't have any more places to put them.

Speaking of bad generals...

Fremont activated this turn thank god. I was just expecting him to sit there until they scraped up enough forces to get rid of him. But now I should be able to take Christianburg this turn pretty easily. The battle will help the control %, so I can build my depot pretty quick. Might need another up along the rail line too, not sure yet, but I have supply wagons to spare if I need to. I need the supply down there, because as soon as I can, I'm going to send a small unit west to destroy rail lines, and the main force East toward Lynchburg. If I can't get any pressure on Virginia from the north, then dangit, I'll get pressure from the West. If he moves forces there to deal with him, then there's always the possibility of another naval invasion with King's Division. He simply can't defend everywhere at once, and so long as Banks and McClellan can keep his advance stalled, he'll have to choose between defending the rear or trying to advance in the front. One or both will also threaten to cut his rail links with the rest of his country, which can really hurt his war effort.

Burnside takes Hardeeville, which is freakin great. It was a good attempt by the Rebs, getting in behind Burnside to cut off his supplies, and stacking Hardeeville with troops, but it also had a chance of backfiring, if Burnside was able to push into the city. Well, between the ships there and their bombardment, and Burnside's guns, I was able to wear down the defenses and capture the city, along with two artillery units and a supply wagon. With all the units he lost in the battles, I doubt there's a whole lot left down here to impede my progress. Unfortunately, Burnside did take quite a few casualties, and I don't really want to push on immediately since I risk losing a lot of regiments.

Which brings us to the big issue in all of this. We have gotten reinforcements, no shortage of those, but I'm afraid that the leadership bought a few too many of those and forgot about the replacements. We have none, zero, zip, etc line infantry reserves, and the rest of the elements are just about as low. Which means that for another fe months, things are going to be pretty dicey. I just hope that I'm able to get at least one decent 3* general transferred over, if not, well, the best laid plans of mice and men and all that.

Well, the Rebs had another force just waiting to trap Burnside, which they did. His force is in godawful shape because we have no replacements to send his way, so every fight he's in, his force simply gets weaker and weaker.

If he can hold out for one more turn, I should have a pretty big surprise for the Rebs though, as King should be arriving with his division. One thing about a campaign with multiple leaders, (Including one who outranks you.) is that it's sometimes hard to get a firm decision on what should be used where. I split King off originally to reinforce Butler in New Orleans. Then the Rebs moved up the Valley, so he was held in case I needed the reinforcements. I had decided that I'd rather have him reinforce Burnside, but the president was spoiling for an attack on the Virginia coast. Which wouldn't be a bad idea, since the rebs have apparently put nearly everything up on the front lines. But it would be a whole lot easier for the CSA to counter than a major attack into the deep south. We're not doing enough to force them to use their rail lines now, and making them gather a large enough force to hold King would be much harder for them the further south he goes. So the decision kept getting pushed back and pushed back, and now it may be too late. I hope not though. I would enjoy hearing the squeal when they see a full strength division landing to save Burnside's bacon.

The last update put the kibosh on Fremont's attack on Western Virginia. The removal of that rail line also hurt our rail capacity, as we had already railed him down, then had to rail him back up last turn before the line disappeared, along with his army most likely. That would have been a long march.

Situation remains basically the same. For some unknown reason, Jackson and Longstreet still haven't tried to take Harper's Ferry very hard. I'm so outclassed as far as generals go, it's not even remotely funny. Banks and Sumner against Jackson and Longstreet...yikes. And from what I can tell, they have a reasonable advantage in numbers. In his position, I would have tried at least one assault. If he'd done it two turns ago, it would have been Banks alone, as I hadn't restructured the command to put Sumner under Banks yet. Now, if he holds off one more turn, he's going to have another force supporting Banks if he tries it. Once he takes that position, I have no choice but to pull back the entire Army, or risk losing most of it, so it's definitely worth the risk, because by this time, he's really going to have to work to push Mac out of Manassas, he's had time to dig in, and he's got some damn strong units with him.

Kearney should finally have his cavalry division together next turn, after about two months of trying to get it all in one spot. Once that happens, I want to see if he can take on Stuart, so I hope he comes back over. If Stuart comes over with anything like the force he did last time, it'll be Yellow Tavern all over again, Kearney should be able to simply overwhelm him if he catches him. Still waiting for some decent generals from the west. I'm sure Jim is over there hoarding them...not that I blame him, I wouldn't want to give any of them up either, but I seriously have about one respectable ** or *** general over here, and I'm facing the best the Rebs have. Maybe I need to beg or something...

Things are working out well in at least one area. The rebels didn't feel much of a sense of urgency, or didn't think I had any reinforcements to send, but they should pay the price now. King has arrived and will assault immediately. He's got a good bit more strength than the rebs, so I shouldn't have any problems pushing him back. Once he's ashore, I'll see about making a move on Savannah.

Nothing much changing in the East yet. I'm trying to get Sumner across the river to resupply Banks. Fremont will arrive in support range this turn, and I'm moving McDowell over to see if I can transfer him to Banks. McClellan is killing his strat rating, so if he can move, that should help.

I'm also moving Porter's corps down to threaten the flank of the forces in Virginia. Hopefully he'll think I'm simply moving around his flank, because I would prefer to have the Navy come pick him up once he gets around Tappanock, then swing further south and threaten Richmond from below. King is a substantial force for Georgia or South Carolina, but Porter has about double the force, so he should provide a much more immediate threat.

In the main theater, Banks held out in Harper's ferry much longer than I anticipated, but the complete uselessness of Sumner who retreated before battle every time I tried to help Banks break the siege, doomed the army. Freemont finally was able to attack, but not until after Banks had fought his last. Luckily for me, Freemont was pushed South rather than North or West, so I was able to make a short run down the valley tearing up track as I went before turning his force back to the North and around. This enabled me to slow any further offensive moves out of Harpers Ferry, which was crucial, since with the loss of Banks' force, I had no organized force to oppose the Rebs if they'd gotten frisky. Lee also finally crossed the river to besiege McClellan, and I then realized I made a pretty dumb error in entrenching Mac inside the town instead of outside. Luckily, it hasn't hurt me yet because he's very well supplied, and very well entrenched, so digging him out will be hard regardless.

I had to give up Hardeeville after a long struggle, because the CS brought down Joe Johnston and a solid force to oppose him. It would have been a much shorter struggle, but every time I tried to load onto the boats, I got attacked. One side effect of this was that Burnside beat Johnston every time, despite the pitiful condition of his force, so Burnside is now the #1 general in the Union army.

Not much going on elsewhere, so let's move on to this turn.

Here's the situation in the East. You can see Freemont to the west, loading up on his trains to rejoin the new army being built outside Baltimore, you can also see the rail lines he was able to tear up along the way, which should stall long enough to get the new force organized.

Mac is besieged, but as you can see, I was able to slip a corps in behind him to break that rail line. That forced him to detach a pretty significant force to stop them, which has weakened Lee a bit. Unfortunately, that force has suffered a bit, and I'm just hoping they make it back next turn. Don't want them destroyed. Meade, my newest corps commander, has taken over for McDowell, and is moving south from Alexandria to attempt to break the siege. I have a complete polyglot force headed down to take over the defense from Meade. I sincerely hope the Rebs don't move there this turn, since, while I think the city could hold out any force he moves in, I'm not positive, and losing that city would completely ruin the defense I have set up.

Near the top, you can see the forces gathering outside Baltimore. As of this moment, it's just a big mush of forces. Next turn, they'll be concentrated, and Grant will have finally arrived to take over for Little Mac, who will then head up there to take control of that area. Once the forces are organized, it will be a pretty powerful force. You can also see Burnside, who is headed to Memphis to take over out there.

Getting Grant in place is the key to this whole thing. Up until now, I've been massively hampered by the godawful effect Mac has on his corps commanders. I'm lucky if even one is active on any turn. This makes any thoughts of going on the offensive very difficult. With Grant in place, the boost he gives to the corps will mean that, while still not even close to their CSA counterparts, I'll at least be able to think a bit more offensively. I hate being forced to just react, I want to dictate the time and place of the fights.

So, on to my plans for the future. Once Mac is replaced, he's going to head to take command of the new force by Baltimore. They're almost all completely raw troops, and since he can train them up, that's just what he'll do. That force will be tasked with keeping Jackson and Longstreet busy. I don't need him to beat them, though he should be much more powerful, just keep them from rejoining the fight in Eastern Virginia. Grant, and the rest of the main army will do their damndest to push Lee back. I noticed that the force in Fredricksburg is no longer a corps formation, so unless he changes that, I should be able to dig them out there. The goal is to isolate and contain his valley forces because he has the great majority of his offensive power up there. The hope is to spread his forces far enough apart that I will be able to destroy one part, then worry about the other. That's the plan anyway, we'll see how it goes.

Just had to throw this in for a laugh.

There's Joe Johnston besieging the two supply wagons I had to leave behind in order to fit on the transports. They've held out for a turn. Wonder how long they'll last. Maybe he'll realize what's there, or they just fall apart from laughing so hard.

One last shot:

Ben Butler is being besieged by a force roughly double his size in New Orleans. We considered retreating, but at the moment, those forces aren't really needed, and the units he's occupying mean that we have been getting some very big and relatively easy wins in the West. So he stays for now. If he holds out a bit longer, he may get rescued from the North before too long, as the western campaigns seem to be going quite well.

All right, moving along, only one shot this turn, it was a pretty uneventful one, with nothing but sea battles going on.

Biggest news so far, Grant has finally arrived in the East. He immediately takes over for Little Mac, who is headed up to the force forming up near Baltimore. With Meade and Grant now in Manassas, plus another corps active next door, I'm looking to finally break this siege that I'm under. In Alexandria, the Rebs didn't take advantage of my temporary weakness caused by the movement of Meade, and I now have a decent two division force there led by Banks. Losing that town would have basically killed my whole position. Would have been worth a shot just to destroy the depot and cut rail lines behind the bulk of my army if he had made the move. Luckily for me, they stayed put.

Fremont continues to make his slow progress to join the main part of what was the Army of Virginia. Another two turns should see him there. He's located some raiders, but I can't catch them as it is. I should have enough cavalry to form up a new division before too long, and I can put them to use chasing down those raids.

As far as the force in Maryland goes, another turn or two should see them fully formed up and ready. It should be a very powerful force. I hope to form it into two wings that can sweep southwest to put pressure on the main parts of the rebel army in Harper's Ferry and Winchester after pushing Stuart back. Since they won't be the main thrust of my offensive, they can afford to have the lesser leadership there. Though I might shift one or two generals south to take over there if needed.

I haven't decided if they will be a corps of the AoP or a separate army. I have two spare army HQs, but they would perform better as Corps, so I'll probably go that route. I've already noticed the large bonus I get just from having the corps commanders out from under Mac. They won't get the bonuses from Grant until next turn, but just having those minuses gone makes a big difference.

Actually, I lied, here's a simple diagram of the plan I hope to use as soon as my forces are ready. Nothing breathtaking I know, but hey, I'm graphically challenged.

Color coded and numbered for ease of viewing.

Step one:
Take the two powerful corps I will build in Maryland. Move both one region west, then split the more powerful of the two off to move south to take on Stuart. They will have marines so hopefully the river won't cause a problem. The second corps will halt one turn to provide support if necessary. The corps in Alexandria should also be available to support them, and if I can synch the move close enough, they may in fact march out to meet there, but I doubt that because if something unfortunate happens, I don't want them retreating north and leaving the lines of retreat unguarded. Once Stuart is pushed back, I will move the more powerful left flank toward Winchester to occupy Longstreet. The right flank will cross the river and move on Harper's Ferry.

Step two:
Once both Longstreet and Jackson are engaged, I will attempt (If I've managed to break this freaking siege by then) to move the main bulk of the AoP, at least 3 corps south staying on the rail line. Depending on his reaction to this, I will either split off one corps or two corps off to get behind Fredricksburg and cut his defenders off there. The other will continue to keep to the rail line, but also needs to attempt to remain in support distance also.

Step three:
Once the flanking force is in position, the last corps will cross the river and assist in the capture of Fredricksburg.

If everything goes off as planned (I know it won't, but a guy can dream at least), I'll have Jackson and Longstreet, who form the bulk of the ANV power, locked in the Valley while my main body pushes him back into middle Virginia. Every region I can take will separate the two wings of his army further. The Valley forces have to be kept busy, that's why I'm using so much force in those corps. I don't care if they get beaten, so long as they keep his corps from moving around to rejoin Lee. I won't have enough power to destroy either force unless I get really lucky, but I should make him quite frantic if things go well. From my perspective, he's made a big mistake in leaving such a large force in the Valley. If he had taken Manassas, it would be different, but as it is, he's got two wings which are separated and in position to be dealt with as individuals. So, I'm going to attempt to show him the error of his ways.

He also could have rendered my entire AoP layout useless if he had continued to push forward with Jackson and Longstreet. I was prepared to pull everything back across the Potomac if he had either continued north or swung in east behind them because I had nothing to defend Pennsylvania or Maryland with aside from militia and fixed forces. Him staying put and going over to the defensive gave me a chance to rebuild and most importantly, bring in new leadership.

Well, it's late October, and thankfully, winter has yet to set in. I say thankfully because things finally seem to be going my way, and I want to get as much done as I can before winter.

I hadn't planned on doing too much offensively but we did have a battle this turn, and it finally broke the siege of Manassas. Lee retreated south.

Lots of casualties, but my formations are still in pretty good shape, and now I have a good idea of what he's got. This battle was big as Lee had built up some decent entrenchments, and this forced him out of them. Here's the situation in the east now.

With Lee pushed back, and my forces by Baltimore finally nearly finished with their organization, I'm going to press forward with at least part of my plan and try to accomplish it before winter hits. Here's the plan at the moment, a few changes from what I had planned last time.

As you can see, I've given up on having McClellan and Sumner continue to shield Pennsylvania while advancing. I figure that it's late enough in the campaign season that even should the CS attempt to move North out of Harper's Ferry, winter should hit soon, and they'll risk losing a large force to weather and any defenses I can rail in front of them. Sumner will move south to Alexandria while McClellan stays north of the Potomac to keep the short raids into Maryland in check. He has marine brigades, so if he needs to cross the river, that should help. Next turn, I will push Stuart back to keep him from having such a good view of my positions and also keep him as far from Lee as possible.

Gen. Banks moves south to defend Manassas. His force is relatively small, but he should be well supported by the adjacent corps, and Fremont's force should arrive there at the end of this turn.

Grant will move his force along with the corps of Meade and Keyes to continue pushing Lee back while he has no entrenchments. If I can push Lee back to Charlottesville, then I will swing that force back east to take Fredricksburg. I want to get that before this offensive is over so I have a position south of the river to use as a springboard for next year's push. I've got tons of spare supply trains, so I've diverted four of them to join Grant so even if winter does hit, I should be able to continue the offensive.

It sucks that I couldn't get things set up any sooner, but I'm pushing it as it is. Not all of the forces are ready, I've got a lot of forces that still haven't recovered yet, namely Burnside's old force, but I want to push ahead while I can. There's no telling what will happen during the winter. I'm just hoping that he doesn't risk marching the Valley forces back into the main battle area of Virginia. If he does, even with the hits they might take marching through the winter weather, it'll make things much more difficult come springtime.